Install Linux - only £28

https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Yes considering all it really costs the the price of the thumbdrive.
Live Sessions are in most distro's install ISOs, free to download.


--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Ed Cryer wrote:
https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Ed

Your link can be shortened, by snipping the payload off it...

http://thiswentviral.net/make-your-computer-like-new/

"A clever new device is saving people hundreds (even thousands)
and the big computer companies aren't happy about it!"

"Update: ONLY 4 MORE AVAILABLE."

Seems hardly worth while to do up all that
fancy advertising, and only have four
sticks to sell.

Maybe it's because it's April 1st here ?

Paul

On 4/1/20 3:44 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Ed

Did anyone besides me pay attention to the date of the article?

April 1, 2020, today, April Fool's Day. LOL


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 70.0.1
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Did anyone besides me pay attention to the date of the article?

April 1, 2020, today, April Fool's Day. LOL

don't laugh too hard, because it's not any sort of april fool's prank.

it's very much a real product which has been around for years, and not
the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com

On 2020-04-01 7:37 a.m., Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Ed

Your link can be shortened, by snipping the payload off it...

http://thiswentviral.net/make-your-computer-like-new/

Â*Â* "A clever new device is saving people hundreds (even thousands)
Â*Â*Â* and the big computer companies aren't happy about it!"

Â*Â* "Update: ONLY 4 MORE AVAILABLE."

Seems hardly worth while to do up all that
fancy advertising, and only have four
sticks to sell.

Maybe it's because it's April 1st here ?

Â*Â* Paul


Yeah, Hooray, 86 today, Made it another year and still vertical. :-)

Rene

Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Ed

Your link can be shortened, by snipping the payload off it...

Yeah, I wish people would stop posting (only) short URLs or/and not
snipping the payload.

http://thiswentviral.net/make-your-computer-like-new/

"A clever new device is saving people hundreds (even thousands)
and the big computer companies aren't happy about it!"

"Update: ONLY 4 MORE AVAILABLE."

Seems hardly worth while to do up all that
fancy advertising, and only have four
sticks to sell.

Maybe it's because it's April 1st here ?

It even says "30% OFF Special Offer Runs Until: April 1, 2020" and
"This Special Offer Ends on: Wednesday, April 1, 2020".

But as nospam mentioned, it's a real product. "spammers are stupid"
anyone!? :-(

On 4/1/20 9:13 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Ed

Your link can be shortened, by snipping the payload off it...

Yeah, I wish people would stop posting (only) short URLs or/and not
snipping the payload.

http://thiswentviral.net/make-your-computer-like-new/

"A clever new device is saving people hundreds (even thousands)
and the big computer companies aren't happy about it!"

"Update: ONLY 4 MORE AVAILABLE."

Seems hardly worth while to do up all that
fancy advertising, and only have four
sticks to sell.

Maybe it's because it's April 1st here ?

It even says "30% OFF Special Offer Runs Until: April 1, 2020" and
"This Special Offer Ends on: Wednesday, April 1, 2020".

But as nospam mentioned, it's a real product. "spammers are stupid"
anyone!? :-(

Nah, buyers, readers of websites, and creators of websites (when they
don not put a date on it) are stupid. IMO


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 70.0.1
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

nospam wrote:
In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Did anyone besides me pay attention to the date of the article?

April 1, 2020, today, April Fool's Day. LOL

don't laugh too hard, because it's not any sort of april fool's prank.

it's very much a real product which has been around for years, and not
the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com


Right. I googled "Xtra-PC" and got
About 16,600,000 results (0.46 seconds)

I've even looked at professional reviews of it, and found people saying
things like "OK, so you have a clapped-out old PC; this will make it
accessible".
And, OK, I agree. But they seem to have missed the blaring scam factor;
which is that you pay £28 ($34.99) for a used 16GB memory stick, even
more if you want it on a larger stick.
Look at their website. They even have
pop-up Rachel waiting to answer live questions.
https://www.xtra-pc.com/

This one in particular gets me very angry;
"It even works with missing or faulty hard drives. Since it runs on a
USB stick, your existing computer is not altered, and youʼll have access
to all of your old files"

Hhhmmm! Now that claim must be criminal.

Ed

On 2020-04-01 10:39 a.m., Ed Cryer wrote:
nospam wrote:
In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Did anyone besides me pay attention to the date of the article?

April 1, 2020, today, April Fool's Day.Â* LOL

don't laugh too hard, because it's not any sort of april fool's prank.

it's very much a real product which has been around for years, and not
the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com


Right. I googled "Xtra-PC" and got
About 16,600,000 results (0.46 seconds)

I've even looked at professional reviews of it, and found people saying
things like "OK, so you have a clapped-out old PC; this will make it
accessible".
And, OK, I agree. But they seem to have missed the blaring scam factor;
which is that you pay £28 ($34.99) for a used 16GB memory stick, even
more if you want it on a larger stick.
Look at their website. They even have
pop-up Rachel waiting to answer live questions.
https://www.xtra-pc.com/

This one in particular gets me very angry;
"It even works with missing or faulty hard drives. Since it runs on a
USB stick, your existing computer is not altered, and youʼll have access
to all of your old files"

Hhhmmm! Now that claim must be criminal.

Ed


Steep price to pay for a five dollar USB stick and a free Linux distro.

Rene

Ed Cryer wrote:

https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

For those that want to know to where a shortened URL points BEFORE they
visit the site, the above shortened URL expands to:

http://thiswentviral.net/make-your-c...id=EAIaIQobChM
IwLHUqvfG6AIVBd_tCh2iCg4yEAEYASAAEgLUZPD_BwE&ad=38 5205241551&sites=www.p
cworld.com&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwLHUqvfG6AIVBd_tCh2iC g4yEAEYASAAEgLUZPD_BwE
&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwLHUqvfG6AIVBd_tCh2iCg4yEAEYASA AEgLUZPD_BwE

That URL did not need shortening. Everything beyond the "?" character
(the arguments delimiter) is unnecessary, so all that is needed for the
URL is:

http://thiswentviral.net/make-your-computer-like-new/

To me, this is a scam. It purports to cleanup and fix problems with
Windows, but instead it is a bootable USB drive to load a completely
different operating system. The user will lose use of all their
software. After all, the OS is the "player", and you want it to run all
the software you installed on it.

The article is not news. It has no journalistic qualities. It never
cites anyone at any of those claimed companies claiming they will lose
money because of this product. It claims this product outperformed
other products, but never mentions just what are those other products.
It is a personal blog purporting to be news. Because the "article"
contains ads for the product, this looks very much like an ad-sponsored
article, like those infomercials pretending to be someone that is not
employed by the seller asking questions about the product. This article
is like those TV ads where some actor dons a lab coat and you're
supposed to assume they really are a doctor, but their credentials are
never divulged.

The ad in the "article" says:

This Special Offer Ends on: Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Yep, they're hoping to snare a bunch of April fools. Linux distros are
free.

From that site offering what is obviously ad-sponsored articles, that
site cannot be trusted to provide anything newsworthy. Read their About
Us page (http://thiswentviral.net/about-us/index.php). Yep, it's a blog
site, so nothing there is news, just anyone spewing whatever they want,
including spamvertizers. Yeah, this site has "news" and articles that
no one else talks about, because other sites aren't interested in
spewing obvious lies.

The site is bookmarked or you are getting feeds from it, remove the
trash source.

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

But as nospam mentioned, it's a real product. "spammers are stupid"
anyone!? :-(

Nah, buyers, readers of websites, and creators of websites (when they
don not put a date on it) are stupid. IMO

there's nothing stupid about reading or buying stuff from websites. in
fact, it's often an incredibly smart thing to do.

what's stupid is buying something without doing any research, which
also happens in stores, if not more often due to annoying salespeople
trying to make a sale.

In article , Ed Cryer
wrote:

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Did anyone besides me pay attention to the date of the article?

April 1, 2020, today, April Fool's Day. LOL

don't laugh too hard, because it's not any sort of april fool's prank.

it's very much a real product which has been around for years, and not
the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com


Right. I googled "Xtra-PC" and got
About 16,600,000 results (0.46 seconds)

I've even looked at professional reviews of it, and found people saying
things like "OK, so you have a clapped-out old PC; this will make it
accessible".

a lot of 'reviews' are little more than paid ads, something which is
not unique to this product.

And, OK, I agree. But they seem to have missed the blaring scam factor;
which is that you pay £28 ($34.99) for a used 16GB memory stick, even
more if you want it on a larger stick.

they're selling a prepackaged solution rather than 'some assembly
required'. nothing unusual about that.

someone who is not computer savvy isn't going to know where to start to
download a linux distro and copy it to a usb stick, let alone actually
do it, or they might have a slow internet connection where that would
be very impractical.

the scam is that they're making very specious claims.

Look at their website. They even have
pop-up Rachel waiting to answer live questions.
https://www.xtra-pc.com/

i block popups, so i guess i miss out on rachel, although not enough to
unblock them.

This one in particular gets me very angry;
"It even works with missing or faulty hard drives. Since it runs on a
USB stick, your existing computer is not altered, and you?ll have access
to all of your old files"

Hhhmmm! Now that claim must be criminal.

it's carefully worded and technically true, therefore not criminal.

VanguardLH wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:

https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

For those that want to know to where a shortened URL points BEFORE they
visit the site, the above shortened URL expands to:

http://thiswentviral.net/make-your-c...id=EAIaIQobChM
IwLHUqvfG6AIVBd_tCh2iCg4yEAEYASAAEgLUZPD_BwE&ad=38 5205241551&sites=www.p
cworld.com&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwLHUqvfG6AIVBd_tCh2iC g4yEAEYASAAEgLUZPD_BwE
&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwLHUqvfG6AIVBd_tCh2iCg4yEAEYASA AEgLUZPD_BwE

That URL did not need shortening. Everything beyond the "?" character
(the arguments delimiter) is unnecessary, so all that is needed for the
URL is:

http://thiswentviral.net/make-your-computer-like-new/

To me, this is a scam. It purports to cleanup and fix problems with
Windows, but instead it is a bootable USB drive to load a completely
different operating system. The user will lose use of all their
software. After all, the OS is the "player", and you want it to run all
the software you installed on it.


What they neglected to mention, is typically Linux cannot mount
an NTFS partition created/managed by Windows 10. Windows 10
damaged $MFTMIRR, damages Volume Bitmap, and adds reparse points
with custom (unsupported) types to the file system. This will
hardly be "access your old files". I understand Fedora had
a fix, where they removed the $MFTMIRR check, but generally
complete solutions aren't available. The Paragon driver
solves one of three reparse points. Not sure how good the
Tuxera one is (payware).

And if Linux touches stuff, some applications will set the
Dirty Bit so that CHKDSK is triggered back in Windows.
Which takes *forever* to complete, if you watch what
happens on Windows 7 as your next boot OS. It might take
half an hour until the OS comes up the final time.

Paul

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-04-01 10:39 a.m., Ed Cryer wrote:
nospam wrote:

[...]

it's very much a real product which has been around for years, and not
the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com

[...]

Steep price to pay for a five dollar USB stick and a free Linux distro.

As nospam wrote (in another response), it's much more than that, it's
- as nospam put it - a prepackaged solution.

From looking at the website, it seems well thought out, ready to use,
easy to use, well documented, etc.. *That* is the added value.

That's completely different from your run-of-the-mill "free Linux
distro".

Whether the added value is worth £28 (minus the value of the stick)
is another matter and so is if there's much of a market for such a
device. But most people would not be able to create the equivalent by
themselves, so ...